


Unsuited for Captivity

by KathrynShadow, Rennfri



Category: League of Legends
Genre: Gen, Mild Gore, Off-screen torture, Old Lore, begins old lore complaint and diverges in later chapters, ignores new lore entirely, jarvan has no sense of self-preservation, katarina is not evil, pre-retcon
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-20
Updated: 2019-01-06
Packaged: 2019-03-21 18:57:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 9,878
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13747233
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KathrynShadow/pseuds/KathrynShadow, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rennfri/pseuds/Rennfri
Summary: In 15 CLE, in the midst of a Demacian military engagement intended to draw Noxian forces out of Ionia, Jarvan IV is captured by a Noxian regiment led by Jericho Swain. He fully expects to die there.Katarina is more optimistic.





	1. Jarvan

**Author's Note:**

> A few brief history notes for those unfamiliar with the original canon:
> 
> \- During its existence, the Institute of War generally only forcibly intervened in magical warfare, while allowing "steel and slugs" combat, hence its conspicuous absence in this fic (and the canon version of Jarvan's capture).  
> \- At some point after the death of Jarvan II, Demacia and Noxus warred in central-eastern Valoran and, at some point during this engagement, Jarvan IV was captured. By process of elimination, this took place simultaneously to the Noxian-Ionian war, and likely closely after the first Noxian-Ionian League match.

When the Noxians broke their forward line, Jarvan was fairly sure that he would die. It wasn’t an entirely unwelcome thought. Death had only begun to feel tangible to him a year before, when a sickness explained away as ‘age’ swept his grandfather into the abyss. Before then, it seemed as if loss only affected other people. Soldiers died in battle, and were honored accordingly. Funerals would come to pass for ancient members of even older noble houses and, though he would attend them as required, they were distant affairs, degrees of separation shielding him from all but the sight of grieving families.

His grandfather’s passing was a unique ordeal - the late King’s death was not just for his family to mourn, it did not belong to them. His loss was the nation’s, and also his father’s rise, a coronation quickly following the funeral and a jarring adjustment made to his own title. Jarvan still, at times, looked for his father when someone addressed ‘the Prince,’ and the whole twisted sequence of events lent him a sick sort of clarity.

Jarvan II had died not plucking his seneschal from the sands of a bloody Noxian arena, or beating back an army from their gates. They were no safer, it seemed, laying in their beds than facing their opponents on the battlefield.

In retrospect, that had been an unbelievably stupid notion. Jarvan’s first clear thought, when he awoke in Noxian custody, was that his father had been right. He was all hindsight, no forethought. He hadn’t thought his position - his physical position on the battlefield or his newly heightened rank - through well enough even to realize that he was a valuable target.

Jarvan woke in Noxian custody and was horrified, more than anything, to find that he had not died in battle.

The crow did absolutely nothing to improve matters.

* * *

Consciousness was a fleeting thing. Though he was sure he had not gotten a wink of proper sleep in days, Jarvan had other methods. The old crow - a General, as far as he had gleaned - did not seem overly possessive of his trophy, or else was hoping that a few cheap shots from the infantry could demoralize him into breaking.

But Demacians did not break; Jarvan was more sure of that than of himself. And though he may have been new to war, he was well accustomed to violence. Noxian grunts were a far cry from his childhood sparring partners - they certainly hit harder than Xin Zhao would have ever dared - but they often beat him badly enough, when properly provoked, to let him get some sleep.

Well. To knock him out, in any case. Jarvan was fairly sure that would be the only possible way he could rest in the center of a Noxian army.

The resulting questionable sleeping schedule prompted him to wake naturally in the middle of the night, with a new splitting headache added to his catalogue of injuries. Some unlucky recruits were still milling about, keeping some semblance of watch over the sleeping camp. A young woman - no, a girl, he thought, as if he were much more than a boy himself - stood some way beyond the bars meant to keep him restrained. As if, with the cell unlocked, he might simply stand up and march right back to Demacia alone.

Jarvan sat up with some difficulty, directing his gaze purposefully away from the red-haired girl in favor of glaring at the bars as if to attempt some sort of amateur telekinesis. There were people in Demacia who could bend iron with a simple dash of magic: blacksmiths and jewelers and even the occasional, particularly gifted plumber.

He would have done anything for a plumber, in that moment.

“You won’t escape, you know.”

_Perhaps she's a mage,_ Jarvan thought. _Perhaps her power is to amplify migraines._

“I’m sorry,” He said coldly, not deigning to look up, “I must have missed the part of our conversation where I asked for your opinion.” 

“Don’t worry,” The Noxian answered. “It never happened.”

He did look at her then, more surprised by the lack of retaliation than her discourtesy, and promptly scowled, weighing the girl’s careful distance and the youthfulness of her face. She wasn’t a real threat, not at her size or bulk or distance. She was just a teenager.

Nevermind that he was also, technically, a teenager. He had to have at least a year on her, and that meant something, damnit.

“Let’s start over.” He said, feeling ruder by the moment, “Shouldn’t you be in bed by now?”

“Shouldn’t you be at home in a palace somewhere?” She shot back.

“Feel free to take that up with your commander,” Jarvan answered, nose wrinkling as he spoke the word _free_. “Now, if you’ll excuse me,” He looked her directly in the eyes, “I’m very busy.”

He proceeded to do absolutely nothing, unless slowly bleeding from a head wound could constitute a conscious act. He was willing to make that argument, if it came to it.

“It wouldn’t help,” She answered, ignoring the obvious dismissal. “My commander isn’t the one who put you here.”

She grinned and Jarvan felt his stomach turn over. No decent person would look so pleased in the face of another’s misery.

“Don’t let me interrupt you,” She continued, sliding down the wall to sit in the dirt some feet away. “I’m sure your time is _very_ valuable.”

Jarvan sighed as loudly as he could manage before redirecting his attention, again, to the bars in front of his face. There wasn’t really anything he could do to make the girl leave - at least, not while she kept her distance - except ignore her and hope that she’d grow bored.

Within a minute, he was bored instead. He picked idly at an ugly scab along his forearm, trying to recall its specific origin. He probably shouldn’t have - he could almost hear an echo of his father’s chiding tone, ‘ _don’t fuss with it_.’

_Well_ , Jarvan thought, _he isn’t here to stop me now._

It had not immediately occured to Jarvan that the visitor might be observing him. It wasn’t until she spoke again that he looked up, only to be startled by the inexplicable fascination in her gaze.

“You’ll just open that up again,” She said, watching Jarvan like a particularly rare species of fish - something exotic and strange, dredged up from its proper home and dropped in a tank for public consumption. “They can do more with it that way.”

He glanced up again, breaking his minute-long pact to not speak to the girl anymore and immediately convincing himself that he was doing so of sound mind and free will.

“If they wanted to ‘do more with it’, wouldn’t they peel the scab off themselves?”

Picking at the wound had been a terrible idea. A small amount of blood had pooled and run over one jagged edge, and Jarvan had no way to mop it up. He momentarily entertained the idea of sucking on the open part, but decided that would be undignified.

A small, mutinous corner of his mind insisted that there wasn’t any part of this that wasn’t undignified. But that wasn’t his doing.

“It bleeds more if you don’t do it for them before they get there,” She said, suspiciously informative. “Harder to keep anything in there if it was just reopened and the blood keeps washing everything out.” She paused. “And it just means you’re doing their job for them. They _want_ you to be hurt.”

With every passing moment, Jarvan became less sure of why he was even entertaining such a discussion.

“Well,” He said dryly, “Perhaps I’ll frustrate them so much by ‘doing their job’ better that they’ll be forced to concede defeat.”

She laughed, full-bodied and surprisingly unmalicious. It evoked a newly-acquired reflex in the Prince: he tensed, leaning nearer to the back of his cage for just the briefest instant. Just until he realized that he wasn’t about to be struck.

“Or you’ll frustrate them into trying to do it better than you can,” She offered, almost merrily. “But if you can survive that…”

“If I can survive that,” He said, recovering quickly, “They’ll have make the statue ten feet higher. When this comes to its inevitable end.”

And then, as if he hadn’t just made a joke at the expense of his own mortality, the potential value of the stranger’s misbegotten decency suddenly occurred to him.

“You don’t have a compress, by any chance, do you?”

He eyed his own forearm critically and prodded at the ragged edge of the wound. A spot of blood transferred onto his fingertip, not particularly noteworthy amidst the dirt.

The Noxian shook her head, shooting him an unmistakably disapproving look.

“Even if I did, I couldn’t give it to you,” She said. “I shouldn’t even be here alone.”

And yet, there she was.

“Do you have siblings?” She asked. “That _is_ how your succession works, right?”

There wouldn’t be any point in appealing to her sense of moral righteousness, Jarvan reasoned. She probably didn’t have one.

He eyed the blood distastefully and finally the scab alone.

“No, I don’t.” He replied simply, half-tempted to leave it all at that. “I have a few older cousins, though.” Much older, and only tangentially related to the ruling line, “…And my mother’s still young enough.” He added reluctantly.

It wasn’t the first time he’d considered it since falling into Noxian hands. In his most self-pitying moments, he conjured up the image of a child born just to replace him, just so that the line could continue on uninterrupted. The fifth of his name.

Even so, he knew it wouldn’t do any good to feel sorry for himself. He glanced up at the girl again, eyes narrowed with the same indignation he’d been using to replace hopelessness, for all this time.

“What do you do here, anyway?” He demanded, irritation mounting in his tone, “You’re too skinny for a footsoldier.”

“You’re too rude for a prince,” She replied, before wincing at her own lame remark while Jarvan rolled his eyes.

“I wouldn’t kill you if I were them,” She said after a pause. “Even if you aren’t Demacia’s only option, I’d think you were too valuable to kill.”

“That would be very reassuring if you had any power whatsoever,” He replied, raising his eyebrows skeptically to let her know exactly how much weight he put on her opinion. “If I were in my father’s place, I wouldn’t trade the welfare of our people for one man.”

He spoke with the confidence of someone who had thought the matter through - who had had lessons, in fact, on risk management and the appropriate things to exchange for prisoners. And, that aside, he wasn’t sure if Demacia would be negotiating at all.

He hoped they were.

He knew they shouldn’t.

She shrugged. “Even if they won’t give anything up for you, that doesn’t mean you’re not worth keeping alive. Or trying to, if you start giving up.”

“Giving up?”

He understood each of her words separately, but took more than a second to link them all together in a comprehensible way. It occurred to Jarvan, in that time, that he had not been trying to stay alive at all, not really. Not in any productive fashion. He had valued spiting his captors over preserving his own welfare at every turn.

It disturbed him for a moment, but not enough to do anything differently. The damned Noxians didn’t need it any easier.

“Do you mean if I meant to end my own life?”

He sounded offended, because he was. If they wanted him dead, Jarvan thought, they were going to have to do the job themselves. He was not about to do anything that remotely resembled cooperation.

“Please. Anything you could kill yourself with, you could kill them with." The Noxian scoffed. "They won’t give you much. Some people just die faster than others, even if they haven’t been hurt much. You don’t seem like the type to give up like that.”

“I don’t think it’s the lifestyle choice you make it out to be,” He said after a moment, resisting a powerful urge to roll his eyes again.

It took a couple extra seconds for the rest of what she said to register - or at least for Jarvan to recognize something that seemed so improbable as to have been imagined.

“And if you intended to give me a compliment,” He said, “I’m fairly sure that’s treason.”

Which was perfectly fine by him. Noxian treason often loosely translated to Demacian heroism.

The girl shot Jarvan a withering look. It did not discourage him in the slightest.

“It’s not _treason_ to say someone else is good,” She said. “If it was, we’d be killing ourselves in battles we can’t win just because we aren’t allowed to admit the other side would beat us.”

“I’m sure we learned from fairly different history books, but is that not what your people have been doing for the better of two centuries?” He grinned, the snide expression drawing attention from the way he tensed up automatically. He had made comments like that before; they were more often met with solid blows than witty retorts.

But she made no move to strike him. She merely shrugged one shoulder, with a look of well, what can you do?

“I said it wasn’t treason, not that people didn’t act like it was. Demacia has its own share of hypocrisy. We all do.”

Jarvan found himself at a loss for what to do with the surprisingly tame Noxian. He leaned forward an inch, regarding her with a raised brow and evident indecision until she looked away.

He hadn’t heard anything, but worried that she did.

“Go ahead,” He said, in the tone of a man still used to dismissing his subordinates, “Don’t stay on my account.”

She grimaced. “It’s not for you,” She said. “But I’m surprised you’d turn down a visitor who just wanted to talk.”

“Given everything you know, did you really expect me to be an enthusiastic conversationalist?” He asked, “Or do you just mean to applaud yourself for not beating me while I can’t retaliate?”

It was a low blow - one for which Jarvan actually felt guilty. He wet his lips and tried again.

“I never turned you down; I heard you, and now I’m asking,” _Asking_ , not ordering; he had pushed his luck enough with this one, as it was, “I’m asking you to leave.”

She looked at him for longer than was comfortable, her expression caught some ways between frustrated and confused. And then she stood, leathers having left no imprint in the packed-down dirt. As if she hadn’t kept him company against standing orders at all.

“Good luck,” She said. It sounded genuine; it sounded almost hopeful.

Jarvan’s throat tightened, and he said nothing back.


	2. Katarina

It wasn’t the last time she visited the prisoner, even though it should have been. Katarina slipped into Jarvan’s accommodations again a week later, to much the same effect as the first time; her curiosity on his state sated, she left again, assuming again that she’d never return.

But then they moved him, and they put him under stricter guard – but  _ outside, _ not inside. She didn’t have much time to watch, but when she made the attempt, she never saw anyone but Swain enter or leave. Ever. And that was different. It couldn’t be whispers of a rescue coming, or she wouldn’t have known where he was at all, so…

In lieu of her original curriculum, Katarina had simply been absorbing all she could from within Noxus’s borders. She wasn’t as good as her brother yet, but she had at least begun to learn some of his tricks at fading from sight; she wasn’t as quick as he was, but she could still run and climb things that weren’t designed for either activity. It was enough to get inside just barely undetected.

Katarina stepped forward, eyes scanning the dark corners for unseen observers. “Hello,” She said, because she couldn’t think of anything else.

“You’re back,” Jarvan said hoarsely, and grimaced before clearing his throat. “You’re probably not supposed to be here.”

Katarina's shrug looked much more noncommittal than she felt. 

“No one ever said I couldn’t come.”

Because the relocation, and the increased guard, and the fact that he was the fucking  _ Prince _ of their most hated rival all screamed it too loudly to be ignored. But no one had told her for sure. Technically.

(‘Technically’ wasn’t enough in Noxus unless you could beat down anyone who would say otherwise. She knew very well that she couldn’t fight the High Command and win.)

“I thought you’d still be alive,” She said, sitting down just out of reach. 

Not that he could move much anyway.

“I hadn’t felt like dying,” Jarvan replied, not at all convincingly. “I didn’t think you’d come.” 

“Liar,” She said. “Everyone wants to die where you are. There's nothing wrong with  _ wanting _ to. You just…” She struggled for an adequate word before deciding to give up. “You just don't do it.”

That was important, she thought. It didn’t matter what you felt; it mattered what you did about it. But life lessons while the student was miserable and half-dead were her father's hobby, not hers, so she left it at that.

She wasn’t sure, exactly, how she felt about how certain she was that the Demacian would be strong enough and stubborn enough to keep breathing. But… she wasn’t expected to  _ delude _ herself, surely?

“I didn't expect to come either,” Katarina continued. “But I was nearby anyway.” 

Because breaking into your superiors’ prison to chat with their most precious victim was to be talked about in the same tone of voice as popping into the shop for some chocolate. Obviously.

“You say that as if it were so easy to stop by.” Jarvan said pointedly. “So what is it, then?” His eyes narrowed.

“Does he want you here? Were you another pawn, after all?”

Swain’s lessons appeared to have backfired in the way that negative reinforcement tended to do in stubborn animals: instead of amending his behavior, Jarvan was content with avoiding the person who had tried to ‘correct’ it. He still had a brain in there, at least. Not that it’d do him much good - at least the stupid ones were better at hoping.

“I don't think anyone wants me here,” She answered. “I didn't exactly ask before coming. But I wouldn't believe anything you said if it was me in there, so I don't know why you'd bother asking.”

Although, some of the ‘staff’ did have a tendency to monologue if prodded. Maybe he had just been hoping she'd start and he'd know for sure. She had never been any good at speeches, though. It wasn’t as if what a person said could ever really be trusted, no matter who it was.

But he was Demacian _,_ she reasoned. Those people liked honesty, right?

“Of course I'm a pawn,” Kat said. She couldn’t mimic the grave inflection he’d put on the word, but had the decency not to mock it. “Everyone is.”

Jarvan scowled, shifting to sit up straighter in his outrage and wincing as it stretched his wounds.

“ _ Everyone  _ isn’t.” He growled and staggered to his feet, stumbling to grasp the bars with cuffed hands and looking, for all the world, as if he expected to be able to do more than just stand there menacingly.

Katarina snapped to her feet anyway, her hand halfway to a sheath before she remembered the bars. And the Prince’s state. And the myriad of other reasons that  _ she _ was in no danger from  _ him. _

He didn’t look dangerous, not really. Angry, exhausted, and perhaps a little unhinged - but not like much of a threat.

“I am  _ not  _ a pawn.” He snarled, “Do you think this was all part of some brilliantly executed plot? That it all rests on your  _ wretched  _ commander? I had agency too, damn you, I had just as much a part in this as - ”

Jarvan fell silent, cutting the sentence short as if that would unspeak it. He stared down at his knuckles, white around the bars.

Kat stared down the corridor, eyes wide and lips shut tight, listening for any kind of activity outside. But, thankfully for her, his outburst had either gone unnoticed or was dismissed as him snapping at no one. She loosened her posture and looked back at the haggard figure before her.

“Never said you were  _ his, _ ” She said almost apologetically. “Just that everyone belongs to somebody. Even him.”

She didn’t dare to say his name. Rationally, she knew that it wouldn’t mystically summon him in a cloud of birds and fury, but it was hard to make the thought stick.

The measured response appeared to calm Jarvan. His grip loosened somewhat, shoulders sinking as it did. 

“Fine,” He said, and hesitated for a beat, “Then to whom do you belong? Why  _ shouldn’t _ I suspect you’re his?”

“I'm going to be Darkwill’s,” She said. She tried not to say it the same way someone would say they were going to be entered in gladiatorial combat against the best fighter in Runeterra. It didn’t exactly work. 

“I'm still under my father, officially.” And the High Command, unofficially, but Papa still picked out most of her targets from what they gave him; she wouldn’t be fully placed under them for a long time yet.

More likely, with the sudden redirection of her training, she would be given to an unrelated general for a time. Just until she could prove herself outside of her father's name and guidance. She understood that, agreed with it to a degree, but…

But an unrelated general might completely ignore her actual skillset and assign her to something like  _ this _ . She knew how to cause pain; she knew how to keep someone on this side of death just as well as she knew how to kill them altogether, but it wasn’t right. It wasn’t what she was  _ for. _

“You can suspect whatever you want, though.” Kat shrugged. “I might end up under him before that.”

Jarvan eased up a bit more, releasing the bars and leaning back on his heels.

“And who is your father, then?” 

She was a little surprised he didn’t know already, but perhaps the du Couteau’s traits weren’t as well-known outside of Noxus. Kat wasn’t sure whether or not to be offended.

Probably not, she thought, unless he could recognize other old houses. He was at least looking at her like he was trying to remember - or sizing her up, but it wasn’t as if she'd fight him right now even if the bars were open - so he might have at least known  _ something. _

“General Marcus du Couteau,” She answered, allowing her pride in that to touch her voice. Why shouldn't she be proud? “I'd ask yours, but all of Runeterra knows _that_.”

Jarvan’s laugh was much more pleasant than Kat was expecting, a full sound, low and soft. Of course, what she was expecting was dead silence or a polite chuckle at the best of times, since she generally assumed Demacians to be too dignified for mirth, but… still.

She shook the thought off. Just because she was comfortable thinking of him as human didn’t mean she could afford to dwell on it.

“Yes, well - at times like this, I wish all of Runeterra were a touch more forgetful.” The chain between his wrists clinked as he shifted. “Du Couteau - I’ve actually heard of him.” His tone was neutral. “Your family is nearly as old as the Darkwills, isn't that right?”

“Maybe as old as yours,” She said, pleased at the chance to brag - and at any recognition in the first place. “Definitely older than Noxus, but the records are... unreliable.” War did that.

“Ours might date back further,” He offered, almost smiling, “It’s a shame I can’t look into that for you.”

“Would you tell me something, though? If you don’t belong to Darkwill yet,” He didn’t sound like he entirely believed her, “Why would your father send you here? You’re obviously not trained to be a footsoldier.”

Katarina hesitated. This was exactly the kind of thing she'd been told not to trust - no one outside of her father and (presumably) certain parts of the High Command were meant to know what she was doing in the final stages of her training, let alone where she was going to go for it. Just because the Prince  _ looked  _ like he wasn’t a threat didn’t mean he wouldn’t become one if he made it out alive.

But what part of it wasn’t common knowledge, outside of her father's exact plans for her - the entire language he'd had her learn that sat decaying just behind her tongue before she’d ever had need of it?

She hadn’t let herself react in front of anyone else, but she resented it all. And it wasn’t as though Jarvan would want to report to her superiors on something that wasn’t even technically disloyalty.

Who was he going to talk to, if not her?

“I was supposed to finish my training elsewhere,” She said. “My father arranged for a teacher to take me in in Ionia, so it'd be out of the way, but…”

Instantly, Kat felt as though she had done something wrong, but nothing happened. No one burst through the door to catch her in the act. She bit the inside of her cheek.

“There's no point learning subterfuge when you're already in a warzone.”

He didn’t give her an immediate response, mulling the words over in silence for long seconds. Then he smiled hollowly, something strangely understanding flickering in his gaze.

“Well,” He began, “Once General DuCouteau passes you off, you’ll know exactly where to direct your complaints. That is, unless even you Noxians are laying the blame for Ionia at our feet.”

She frowned, caught at a loss. 

“Why would I blame Demacia for Darkwill invading somewhere else?” She asked, puzzled.

She wasn’t sure, she realized, the exact implications of Jarvan being there. His capture, she understood. His value, she  _ especially  _ did. She remembered some details of the fight that led him here, but… come to think of it, that was all.

But asking, she thought, would only show her ignorance. He wouldn't exactly want to go into his country's politics with her anyway.

And, besides, she didn’t want to dwell on anything she couldn’t change.

Jarvan shifted uneasily, sizing her up again before letting out a heavy sigh.

“Damn if I know.” He said, “But it’s become a common theme - almost as if we can’t claim to uphold justice universally without universal power.”

There was something else waiting just under the surface there, probably some tedious speech about  _ honor  _ and  _ justice  _ and the Demacian way. Katarina couldn’t keep from rolling her eyes - she wasn’t stupid enough to believe that Demacian justice was the absolute definition of the word, just like she wasn’t stupid enough to believe that Noxian strength was the only true kind - but she knew better than to start an argument. For all she knew, he was being facetious himself.

“Honestly, I don’t mean to be rude, but I was tired enough when you came in here.” He said, instead of launching into a lecture. 

Thank the gods.

“Never thought I'd ever be able to put someone to sleep,” She said dryly. “I should probably be home, anyway.”

She straightened up. “I'll see you later,” She said.

“Don’t be a stranger.” He replied, almost as if he meant it.


	3. Jarvan

In the weeks that followed, Jarvan decided that he wanted to be remembered as resolute. Whether or not it was true, whether or not he had eventually cracked under the pressure of the Noxians’ game, he hated the idea of dying as a coward more than that of death itself.

And he was fairly certain that he would die.

Swain didn’t make it obvious, but his army had begun to move again, making its way out of contested territory, and the old crow’s interest waned as if he had already won _._

He may have already won. An increasingly mutinous part of Jarvan was willing to concede that much - the same part that had eventually crumbled under the weight of too much pain, of too many beaks and claws. The part that had sunk low enough in fear to, obliging his captor’s wishes, learn the Noxian words for _please_ and other pleas. The part that had urged him to stop fighting, if that would help him to survive.

In the increasingly lengthy hours between tortures, he daydreamed about escaping. It was entirely unlikely, but that was what made it a dream: not so much something to hope for as a way to occupy his mind. It was less tiring to dream than to wallow in self-pity, and at least if he spent his time imagining a decent end to all of this, he wouldn’t have to think about what his father must have been feeling.

He stirred from one such reverie when the du Couteau girl slipped into his prison again, lifting his head up from arms crusted over with scabs and running a hand through his untrimmed beard in a vain attempt to tidy it.

“Are you back to say goodbye?” His voice came in a croak, brow pulling up with something almost like humor.

It had to be a _joke_. He couldn’t be done like this, his life couldn’t be over before he’d had any opportunity to live it. He couldn’t die at eighteen.

The Noxian’s face was carefully neutral as she stepped forward, even as she crouched down to meet him at eye level. He would ordinarily have stood to recieve her. It felt like too much effort now.

“Why would I do that?” She asked. “Tired of me already?”

He met her eyes without hesitation and stared for a few seconds before opting to respond. She didn’t seem to know anything - and besides, he doubted she could confirm his hunch even if she wanted to.

“I think the _cripple_ has gotten bored of me.” It was a low blow - a petty, unnecessary disrespect - which was exactly why he landed it. Pettiness was his last remaining weapon, his final arm when he could scarcely find the strength to lift his own. “And we’ve started to move again. What do you think that means?”

He uncurled only a little, baring legs as ravaged as his arms and a markedly slighter frame than he’d arrived with. He rested his elbows on his knees and looked at her dead-on.

“I think it means they're tired of carting you around and want to put you somewhere with better walls,” She said. Perhaps she had meant it to be reassuring, but the words seemed to manifest as a physical knot in Jarvan’s throat. Oddly, she did not look any happier for it.

“The last I heard of anyone organizing an escape from Noxian imprisonment,” He coughed, a futile attempt to force weakness out of his voice, “Was over ten years ago - my grandfather’s mission. And even he didn’t begin it on the inside.”

She didn’t look nearly as pleased as she should, he realized. His capture was a major victory for Noxus - shouldn’t there have been at least some jubilation? Some smugness? Some carefully-buried hint of satisfaction?

He looked at her, forlorn, searching for the pride he had expected to see in any Noxian. Finding none of it, he sighed, tipping his head forward to run a dirty hand through equally filthy hair and trying not to think too hard about the sting threatening his eyes.

“There are still people on the outside,” She said, tone oddly restrained. “Demacia can't just let you go.”

She looked away, aware, perhaps, of just how false her reassurance sounded.

“Are you,” He watched in disbelief, leaning forward before he could think better of it, “You’re worried for me, aren’t you?”

He swallowed hard, heart pounding, head throbbing.

“You don’t want me to be here.”

The idea didn’t become real until he spoke it aloud, and then there wasn’t any way to take it back. He wrung his hands, blank-faced as he stared down at them.

He had never been one for plotting. Perhaps a more calculating man - perhaps his father, in his position, would have been able to do something with this unlikely sympathizer.

He looked up again with a newfound sense of calm. There was a strange sort of vindication in it: in winning over even a single Noxian.

“Demacia might just let me go,” He spoke softly, with dignity, “I am not worth - _nothing_ is worth what my father would have to trade for me.”

“I don't want _anyone_ to be here,” She said, teeth clenched. “You fought, and you lost. Taking it beyond just capturing or killing you there is just…”

She looked almost as tired as he felt.

“I don't think they'd make a deal,” She said finally. “But I don't think they'd leave you behind, either.”

“You have a surprising amount of faith, for a Noxian,” Jarvan replied, lips curling just a little. It was almost reassuring to watch someone else wrestle with the same arguments he had, and to come to the same inevitable conclusion.

He was a dead man. That much was certain. He just hadn’t caught up with it yet.

“I think... I do think that they tried _._ But my father,” He worried his lip between his teeth, “My father isn’t anything like my grandfather was. He’s a cautious man. I can’t imagine him taking the sort of risks he’d need to do anything but leave me here.”

“It doesn't have to _be_ him!” She shouted and Jarvan flinched. Her gaze flicked back to the tent-flap and he held his tongue. Moments passed in silence as they waited to be caught.

No one came. No voices echoed from outside. But her next words were quieter anyway.

“It doesn't have to be anyone in particular,” She continued in a tight, low tone. “You don't think anyone would go rogue just to _try_?”

She rubbed at her face with her hands.

“I don't - ” She couldn’t seem to find the words and relented, falling silent and digging in her pocket instead.

He didn’t understand what she was up to until a bundle of small, thin lockpicks was pressed into his hands. Even then, it took him an extra moment of staring down at them, feeling the warm metal of the tools against his palms and blinking as if he expected them to disappear. It would have surprised him less if they did.

“I don't have anywhere else,” She said, meeting his eyes again.

Jarvan’s mind was somehow blank and racing, all at once.

“Yes, you _do_ ,” He said, unfamiliar urgency filling him as he met her eyes again. He hadn’t had power like this in over a month, hadn’t imagined escape but for in his dreams.

“You aren’t a bad person, Lady Du Couteau.”

It was the most respect he’d given any Noxian in his life, but he realized too late that he had never asked for her given name - and hell, if anyone deserved the courtesy, it was her.

He held the small tools carefully and wondered if the entire regiment couldn’t hear how loudly his heart was pounding. It didn’t seem that far-fetched.

“And you’re smart enough to know that one _extremely_ wounded man would be hard-pressed to make it out of this alone.”

He didn’t look away. She had already passed the point of no return, must have already been thinking of what would happen if she were found, and if Demacians and Noxians had a single thing in common, it was their national loyalty.

That didn’t bend, in his experience. It either held firm, or it broke.

Lady Du Couteau shut her eyes.

“I _can’t_ ,” She said, voice tight. “I can’t fight an entire army any more than you can. I don’t do suicide missions.” And then, despite her insistence, she continued, “What else would you have me do?”

“What would you have _me_ do?” Jarvan countered, finding the energy with his rush of adrenaline to finally rise to his feet, “You are the one who was trained in subterfuge - what did you imagine I’d be able to accomplish on my own, with nothing but a few lockpicks to my name?”

He stepped forward deliberately, moving with purpose to stand inches from the bars.

“What do you want to come of this, really?” Even in his weakened, wounded state, Jarvan had never sounded so much like a King.

“Did you mean to make a token gesture, or do you want to make history?”


	4. Katarina

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Katarina makes a choice.

_“Did you mean to make a token gesture, or do you want to make history?”_

For several seconds, Katarina couldn’t find it in herself to speak. And then she realized how close it looked to her kneeling before him, and the searing flash of shame and confusion sent her bolting to her feet.

At his full height, Jarvan stood nearly a head above her. It hadn't bothered her before, not once in the dozens of times she’d come here and she should never even have visited him once and if she hadn’t - _if she hadn’t_ -

If she hadn’t, she would never have known that there were Demacians who were worthy of her respect - who may have been worth saving - and she never would have had such a doubt in her head, she would never have felt this twisted obligation to be the one to save him.

‘Strength above all,’ but whose strength? There was nothing of her father’s Noxus in attacking someone when they were chained down and broken already. But apparently there was quite a lot of Darkwill’s Noxus in it. And if Darkwill was supposed to be her commander in the end, what did that mean for her?

What did it mean for Noxus?

“Some history if we both get killed,” Kat snapped, but the venom was pure desperation. She had never had a choice, not once, not one with even the hope of a way out. Having _this_ be the first one sprung on her felt like a vicious joke from something divine and cruel.

She could kill other Noxians. She had done it before. But that had been in defense of the greater country, not as collateral damage for her own defection.

Kat would have said that she didn’t know why she was considering something like this, but she knew. She was done for the moment she made the first move towards helping him. Even if she backed out now, tried to snatch the lockpicks back and run back home, she would always know that she had failed here.

She would never be who she was again.

“I hate you,” She said, but her voice came out devoid of feeling. That was good, she thought. That was better. Emotion would only distract her, make her overthink, and only fools overthought.

“Stay there,” She said, and left.

It took her longer than she wanted, slinking around corners and holding her breath and just barely fading out of sight in time when she had to, but she found a guard’s spare set of armor that looked like it would fit Jarvan’s frankly unreasonable frame. He wouldn’t fool a soul up close, but it would be enough from a distance.

When she entered the tent again, Jarvan was pacing anxiously, but he stopped at the sight of her. An entirely unjustified grin split across his face.

“Does this mean I’d better not get killed?”

Katarina resolved not to look at him, just flattening the leather pieces enough to push them through the bars before getting to work on the lock.

“If you're the only one, I _will_ haunt you,” She said flatly, not looking at his face.

She couldn’t let herself think about this. ( _Her father would be so_ ) she couldn’t let ( _her siblings_ ) _she couldn’t let herself think about this._

Kat looked up and wasn’t sure how Jarvan could have still been smiling at a time like this - but at least he appeared to be capable of putting his armor on alone. It was more than she’d have expected from a bloodline-based ruler.

_He must just be the exception._

She straightened up as the door swung open and couldn’t think of anything to say. For one precious, wasted second, Jarvan stared at the open door. Then he crossed the threshold silently, and looked to Kat with obviously forced calmness.

“I’ll follow your lead.” He said, palpable relief undercutting his serious tone, “Try not to look so grim - this should make for a very interesting song, if we survive it.”

Katarina wasn’t nearly so enthusiastic. An awful thrill kept taking hold of her at just how reckless this all was, but something always shook it off at the last second.

Like that.

“Assassins don't get songs,” She said. “I don't think these ones will paint me very well, anyway.” The captive prince looking sad and noble, charming the Noxian lady from her post… she could only imagine how she would be portrayed.

She had her reasons. Just because she wasn’t sure of all of them didn’t mean she didn’t have them.

She could kill him now, she thought. She could say she stopped him in the middle of an escape attempt. They would question why she was there at all, but they wouldn't question her loyalty.

But she couldn’t do that.

“Pretend you know where you're going,” She said. She wished she'd thought ahead to the point of fetching guards’ armor for herself, but… oh, well.

Kat took his hand so he at least had a way to keep track of her without his eyesight, and vanished as they stepped outside. Jarvan’s hand tightened briefly around hers, but he squashed his shock well enough a moment later, moving deliberately, with purpose, and mostly appearing to ignore his injuries. It was only half-convincing, but Kat would take that over nothing at all. She considered, at first, leading him on some sort of roundabout path, perhaps mimicking one of the patrols - but patrols didn’t generally travel in singles, and the longer they stayed behind Noxian lines, the more likely someone was to spot him.

She flickered back into view for a split second and her heart tried to vacate her body in hopes of surviving on its own -  but nothing happened; no one saw. Kat grit her teeth and kept going, hoping that she wouldn’t lapse again until she meant to.

She'd never kept stealth up for this long before. Talon might have even been impressed, if not for the cause of it.

Though, come to think of it, _Talon_. If anyone in her family could have understood something like this, it would have been the one loyal only to their father and not his country.

The further they continued, the more Jarvan was limping - not badly enough to be noticeable right away, but getting increasingly worse. She couldn’t carry him out. She definitely couldn’t do it without getting spotted as something out of the ordinary. But the camp was surrounded by woods, and if they could just make it that far...

Jarvan squeezed her hand. She wasn’t sure what he meant to accomplish with that, but assumed it was just a pained reflex. Or he had felt her shaking and was trying to calm her down, or something.

If that was it, Kat thought, it was an exercise in futility. But she supposed it was nice of him to try, if a little insulting.

They reached the line of trees before anyone looked at him twice. One of the watch - a short woman, her features indistinguishable in the dark - glanced their way. Her eyes widened and her mouth opened, her hand moving towards her weapon.

For all Kat knew, she was only going to say hello and was neither about to sound an alarm or go for her spear. But Katarina was taught only to deal in certainties.

The guard died almost silently, her voicebox slashed through along with her throat.

Kat guided the almost-corpse to the ground. She wanted to apologize, but couldn’t risk the possibility that the woman's spirit would be yanked back and interrogated, or something. Instead, she simply cleaned her blade off on her cloak before continuing to walk.

“Don't run,” She murmured, once she was certain there was only a body behind them. Jarvan obeyed, either too startled or too smart to break pace.

“ _Thank you._ ” It was a polite, understated murmur, a tone reserved for small favors, as if she had held open a door for him to pass. Kat hadn’t expected him to say anything at all, and it made her skin prickle with something that felt like shame, but wasn’t. She forced a chuckle.

“I don't think anyone's ever thanked me for killing before,” She said.

But then, she usually didn’t have witnesses unless instructed to make an impression. And she'd certainly never killed in the defense of anyone specific, just a nebulous concept of _Noxus_ or _glory_ or _vengeance_.

“Do Demacian assassins get notes? Or do your people do flowers or something?” It felt better to keep the conversation light once they could actually have a little of it.

She didn’t ask him how far he thought he could go, because she knew it wouldn’t be enough anyway. They'd go until at least one of them fell and they'd hope it would take the army too long to find them before they started moving again.

“I don’t think... we _have_ assassins, exactly.” He said, giving away the reason for his overly hushed tone. His voice was strained with pain - a familiar sound, one she immediately recognized - and breath heavier than it should have been for just taking a walk.  “But it felt rude to say nothing.”

Kat rolled her eyes.

“Everyone has assassins,” She said. “Yours must just go by a different name.”

It was strange, to think of the next person in line for a godsdamned throne to not be as intimately familiar with her line of work as any general in the Noxian army. She looked over at him curiously. He was neither stupid nor entirely innocent of the darker side of government, or he wouldn't have survived Swain as long as he did, but he seemed so _genuinely_ at a loss there.

She couldn’t be the first assassin he'd met. Could she?

“Use me as a crutch if you want,” She said, noticing the first breaks in his pace. “If you get found, we both die. And I'm not going down like that.”

He hesitated, but then a slight dip in the grass threatened to blow their entire operation.

“We should have stolen that _bastard_ ’s cane,” He muttered, slinging an arm over Katarina’s shoulders. He was lighter than she expected. It wasn’t exactly a good sign, but she'd definitely take it; better to be successfully limping a worryingly thin man along than unsuccessfully dragging a well-fed one.

“At least it might have,” He coughed, “Slowed down the pursuit a bit.”

She snorted.

“He'd just have someone else chase you instead,” She said. “He's good at that.”

Jarvan huffed out a breathy laugh, moving a bit easier with half of his weight on Kat, “I’d think he’d - _hah_ \- at least have to fight his own battles, to get to - ”

He cut off abruptly at the sound of heavy footsteps in the woods, shoulders drawing up and back, tensing and standing as best he could on his own two feet. He reached for a weapon that he obviously didn’t have and, in its absence, looked frantically to Katarina.


	5. Garen

The man who emerged from the treeline was easily as broad as a tree-trunk himself, his size made all the more unreasonable by pauldrons that nearly doubled the width of his shoulders. Garen had drawn his blade by the time the Noxians could spot him in the darkness, brandishing an ornate broadsword that suffered from the same sizing phenomenon as his pauldrons.

He was utterly, uncompromisingly Demacian on first sight, and for good reason. He had absolutely no intentions of concealing his identity once seen, and marched determinately towards the two particularly unlucky Noxians before him, jaw set as though he’d already determined their fate.

After all, he had.

Until one of them said his name.

 _“Garen?”_ Jarvan released his companion and stumbled forward, making it all of two steps before he had to stop and wince. “How did you - is it really you?”

It could not have been anyone but Jarvan. This was a man he’d known since childhood, whose features he would have recognized at every stage of their evolution over more than a dozen years. A man who, now, looked weaker than he’d been at the age of five, and thinner than he’d become during even the most sudden growth spurts of his youth.

He’d seen stranger apparitions in uncharted land before, particularly where the earth hummed with magic as untamed as that which he felt growling underfoot. But this was Jarvan.

“I should be asking you,” Garen answered, sheathing his blade and straightening up from a half-step he'd taken just in case the Prince was about to fall. “There's something wrong with these woods.”

The Noxian rolled her eyes, and then something more visceral passed through them. The animal panic Garen saw there sent his hand back immediately to his blade.

“I should go,” she said.

Jarvan whirled around. Something twisted in Garen’s chest but he ignored it, training his attention on the potentially murderous Noxian in their company.

(Every Noxian was potentially murderous, after all.)

 _“What_ _?”_ Jarvan gaped, incredulous. “Don’t be ridiculous! You can’t go back to them.”

And just like that, he’d taken her hand.

She glanced at Garen before her eyes flicked back to Jarvan’s. He tried to reassure himself that she could not feasibly draw a weapon while holding hands with the Prince, and then clamped down on a horrified reflex at the thought of _a Noxian_ _holding hands with his Prince._

“My family - ” she began, and stopped short. After a moment, she started over. “If he's here to rescue you, I don't need to be.”

Garen frowned. Of all the ways to interpret the Noxian’s presence here, he would have sooner bet on ‘inexplicable victim of blackmail’ than ‘willing rescuer.’

“A friend?” he asked Jarvan, cautiously.

“That’s putting it very mildly,” Jarvan answered, barely looking back.

“I asked you what you wanted once already,” he said, redirecting his attention to his companion. “Do you really think it’s wise to turn back now? Can you be sure no one will realize you were gone?”

Garen felt even worse about the prospect of a reluctant Noxian ally than a fully committed one. He pushed the thought away, though, and reminded himself that he was, technically, outranked.

More importantly, he wasn’t willing to jeopardize anything where Jarvan was concerned. Sending a Noxian back to warn the enemy of his absence - if it hadn’t already been noticed - would have done exactly that.

“Could you go straight to Noxus, if you were me?” the Noxian asked.

Jarvan hesitated.

“If I had seen what you have?” His gaze flicked briefly downwards, “I don’t know. But I couldn't possibly go back home.

“You don’t have to become a _formal citizen_ to come with us, you know. The only choice you have to make right now is whether you want to accompany me out of Noxian land, or pretend you didn’t have a part in this at all.”

Jarvan’s gaze was unbelievably steady. Despite his misgivings about the entire situation, Garen felt a surge of pride.

“Do you really want to pretend for the rest of your life?”

The Noxian was silent for a while - for long enough to worry Garen, though Jarvan remained resolute. She broke gaze with him for a moment as she came to her conclusion.

“I’m not the best liar,” she said, with a tone of finality.

“Then it's decided.” A grin split across Jarvan’s face, infectious in its sense of pure relief. But the feeling in Garen passed when Jarvan winced, replaced by a powerful (and only narrowly suppressed) urge to lift his friend over his shoulder and physically carry him back to Demacia.

“Garen - I can explain all of this, I swear, but would you just…” With no regard for rank at all, Jarvan entreated, “Just trust me, at least until we’re out of the woods. I wouldn't have made it this far without her.”

Garen shifted uneasily. He thought about how he had no idea who the woman was, or what she wanted, or if leading her straight back to their camp would end in disaster. He thought about how, even with all the precautions they'd taken, she might still have been a trick of whatever wild magic lurked in the woods.

But above all, he thought about how Jarvan was his Prince, even if only recently, and that he was sworn to obey, even if Jarvan himself seemed to have forgotten. So he bowed. He wouldn’t do Jarvan the disservice of defying him in present company.

“Do you need me to bring the others here?”

Jarvan frowned, for some reason, but Garen could not afford to worry about that mystery yet.

“No - better that we regroup and leave at once. I can still walk.”

The Noxian glanced at Jarvan skeptically but made no argument, shifting slightly closer to his side in a way that she, no doubt, thought was subtle.

“How far?” she asked, addressing Garen directly for the first time.

He looked to Jarvan without any attempt at subtlety before he deigned to answer. Jarvan’s nod was much less perceptible - quick and careful, as if he were worried about offending the woman.

Garen was beginning to wonder if so much time among the Noxians might have rattled Jarvan’s brain.

“About a quarter mile.” He gave the least detailed answer he could offer without inspiring offense out of Jarvan; it may have been some time since they’d seen each other but, by god, he still knew how to keep his oldest friend’s temper under wraps.

If they had been alone, Garen might have explained how the Vanguard had fanned out to cover this much ground, but he wasn’t born yesterday. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust Jarvan’s judgement, but he did have a healthy respect for the effects of exhaustion and malnourishment on the average human being. It wasn’t Jarvan’s fault that he wasn’t in any position to make snap decisions about who to trust right now. Judging by his staggered step, he could barely make snap decisions about his own _mobility_ , for goodness’ sake.

“I don’t believe you mentioned your name, Miss...?” It didn’t cost him anything to be polite, though the courtesy of Garen’s tone was definitely at odds with the suspicion in his eyes.

Jarvan perked up at his question. Garen assumed he was glad to see him taking the high road.

“Lady,” she corrected, “Katarina du Couteau.”

Garen’s eyebrows temporarily migrated into his hairline. Katarina paused for a moment.

“I already know who you are,” she added.

“Du Couteau?” Garen repeated, staring at Jarvan in a way that would almost look mutinous, if either of them thought he was capable of such a thing. Jarvan, to his credit, did not laugh, but his lips curled up and he tried to mask his mirth by leaning towards Kat as if for support.

It did not fool Garen whatsoever.

 _“Jarvan -”_ His tone was half-exasperation, half-disbelief, and Jarvan did not appear moved by it at all. If anything, the damn fool was _smug._ “We’ll have to talk about this, once we’ve regrouped.”

“Alright, very well...” Jarvan said, sounding suddenly downtrodden. “If I make it that far, we can discuss it.”

It was probably meant to be a joke. Garen stared at him, visibly horrified, regardless.

Katarina rolled her eyes again and insinuated herself underneath Jarvan’s arm, essentially forcing him to use her as a crutch. That, at least, was one part of this scheme Garen could support.

“Not who you were expecting?” she asked dryly.

“No,” he confirmed, curt. “Won’t your father be worried, _Lady_ du Couteau?”

Jarvan was watching him all the while, even as he let a good deal of his weight rest on Katarina. He looked worried, and Garen... well, Garen wasn’t willing to assuage that so easily. It was right for him to be concerned. The situation was concerning.

“He raised me so he wouldn't have to be,” Katarina said coldly.

Thankfully, that line of thought was cut short as another member of the Vanguard broke through the trees, slowing as he spotted them.

“Captain,” he said, and then seemed to register his company. “Your... Highness?”

It was a fair question. Jarvan had never looked less like himself.

“Under about a pound of dirt,” Jarvan confirmed confidently.

“Douglas,” Garen acknowledged, easing up considerably. His confrontational posturing had been reserved for Katarina, and now that she was decidedly outnumbered, his mind felt more at ease. “It’s a long story, but it seems our Prince could only sit and wait so long.”

His tone may have been respectful, but the way he spoke on Jarvan’s behalf - even under the circumstances - certainly toed the line.

“And this is Katarina du Couteau, the person who released him.” He met the soldier’s eyes meaningfully, choosing each word with care. “If we’re lucky, the Noxians won’t have caught on to his absence yet, but we don’t have all night.”

Jarvan shifted a little, adjusting the arm slung over Katarina’s shoulders, and firmed up when Garen’s gaze shifted to him.

“Your Highness,” he could not keep the fondness from his voice, even speaking formally, “it would be more efficient for one of us to carry you.” He would have made the suggestion earlier if it wouldn't have put him at a disadvantage in such close proximity to a Noxian. With Douglas at their side, he was confident that they would be safe.

Jarvan hesitated, but ultimately slipped his arm off of Kat’s shoulders to stand unsteadily on his own feet.

“As long as you leave it out of the stories,” he grumbled, Garen’s heart warming at the thought.

Katarina smiled as Jarvan shuffled forward.

“We'll see how they portray me,” she said. “Then we'll talk.”

Douglas shot her a look that was equal parts startled and distressed. He recognized her surname, no doubt, and that was probably bad enough without the casual repartee. He looked only a bit less tense when Jarvan smiled in response, and stepped forward to help him off his feet.

“Oh, come on,” Jarvan said, pausing only briefly as he was lifted. “She’s allowed to joke. I wouldn't have seen you so soon without her, you know.”

Garen did not look happy about any of this, because he wasn’t. But he made an executive decision to squash the line of discussion before it provoked any of the participants, and cut in decisively.

“We should get moving. The less time spent waiting, the better.”


End file.
